New Delhi, December 13: The
British Channel4 TV has revealed that a “reputed” British charity,
Sewa International, has been surreptitiously channelling funds to fascist
Hindu organisations to be used for harming Indian Muslims and Christians.

This comes close to the recent revelation that a US-charity, India
Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), has been pumping millions of dollars
to the Hindu hate outfits in India.

In Britain Sewa had been claiming that they passed on funds to Indian
organisations working among the poor. What in fact had been happening was
that much of the funds had been regularly been channelled to Hindu fascist
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its front organisations like Vanvasi
Kalyan Ashram. These organisations were directly involved in the
three-month long state-sponsored anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat state
earlier this year.

Jonathan Miller of Channel4 reported
Thursday, December 12, that HSS, the British arm of RSS, has been
registered in Britain as a charity for the last 30 years. Every week it
holds 72 shakhas (fascist-style drill and indoctrination camps) all
over Britain.

Every year up to 60 of these
volunteers come from Britain to India for special training by RSS on
fraudulently raised funds from unsuspecting donors, including Muslims and
white Christians. Sewa had even recruited four British peers including
Lord Dholakia (president of Liberal Democrat Party), Paul Botaeng (cabinet
minister), and Lord Adam Patel of Blackburn.

Lord Adam Patel, a Muslim of Gujarati
Indian origin, said that he was shocked to see the hidden face of Sewa:
“Well, I was absolutely shocked. They were involved directly or
indirectly in many communal riots, they were involved in the destruction
of Ayodhya mosque. So I said what’s going on? Have I lent my name to the
wrong organisation?”

In August Lord Patel wrote a letter
demanding details of Sewa’s relations with Hindu fascist organisations
in India. Sewa, which had been merrily using his name so far, did not deem
it fit to reply. Lord Patel resigned in disgust. The worst point of it all
was that the February-April pogrom was staged by these organisations in
Gujarat itself, the place from where Lord Patel comes.

Sewa had been channelling funds to RSS
front organisation Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, which works among tribals to
prevent them from converting to Christianity. The Ashram was involved in
mobilising tribals to attack and kill Muslims, burn down their houses,
rape women, and destroy mosques.

The Ashram also organises attacks on
churches and priests in tribal areas. The Ashram website is not too modest
about its predilections. It says it is “dedicated to weaning” tribals
“away from the evil influence of foreign missionaries and anti-national
forces.” No wonder, they have been systematically attacking churches and
murdering priests and spreading hate against Muslims and Christians,
“the anti-national forces,” in their parlance.

The devious methodology not only duped
Lord Patel to support what India’s top retired judges said was a
“genocide” of Muslims, even Prince Charles was misled by their
humanitarian veneer. The Prince of Wales’ office wrote “the Prince
continues to be most impressed by the excellent work being done by Sewa
International (and sends his best wishes to all the staff and
volunteers).”

Lord Meghnad Desai of London School of
Economics told Channel4, “The RSS is like a fascist youth movement, like
Black Shirts or something like that, but perhaps with deeper roots,
because the RSS has been there for 75 years plus. In that time the RSS has
evolved a unique, and some say potentially lethal, philosophy.” Lord
Desai, too, is of Indian Gujarati origin.

Chelan Bhatt of Goldsmith College,
London explained, “The core ideas of the RSS are based on an ideology
called Hindutva or Hindu nationalism. This was an idea formed in the 1920s
and at the root of it is the idea that India has to be an exclusive
nation-state, where minorities must demonstrate unconditional love and
obedience to the nation. Otherwise, they will be converted forcibly or
removed.”

Bhatt explained that in India the
popular Hindutva slogan is that Muslim have only two places to
choose from Pakistan or kabristan (graveyard). The Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) heading the ruling coalition at Centre is a Hindutva
party and the political wing of RSS. Last year HSS of Britain (British arm
of the RSS) raised $4 million for earthquake relief in Gujarat. Muslims
and low-caste Hindus barely got anything out of these funds.

Channel4 has unearthed direct evidence
of the Hindu fascist Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram’s involvement in the
anti-Muslim pogrom. It talked to a victim, Mohammad Hajji, who said, “We
had to run away from our village. This is our house which they burnt. They
looted our property. About 50 homes were destroyed here. And this is our
mosque which they burned down. We had no fight, quarrel, problem of any
sort with the tribals. We used to live peacefully with them.” Jonathan
Miller says that in village after village victims blamed Kalyan Ashram for
the violence.

A Hindu activist told Channel4 that
the Kalyan Ashram had provided bows and arrows to tribals as well as
revolvers and led the attacks on Muslims. Another Hindu fascist activist
said, “The Christians have made a church in our village. We have thought
several times of destroying it. One day we will definitely break it
down.”

Concerned Indians have approached the
UK Charity Commission to look into the dangerous deception. Quite a few of
such front organisations have been doing the same in the US. A citizens’
group there has launched a programme “Project Saffron Dollar” to stop
these fascist groups from obtaining US funds for anti-Muslim,
anti-Christian hate campaigns and pogroms.